The present invention relates to a refueling facility for supplying fuel, a refueling device to be refueled by the refueling facility, and a refueling method.
Conventionally, there have been suggested various fuel cell vehicles driven using electric energy, which is output from a fuel cell. This type of fuel cell vehicle is configured to be refueled with hydrogen or other fuels through a fuel hose or the like from a refueling facility.
In order to refuel the fuel cell vehicle, it is necessary to connect the refueling facility to the fuel cell vehicle using a refueling connector of the fuel hose and to connect them to each other using an electrical signal connector to send or receive a signal or the like that indicates the state of the fuel cell vehicle (the temperature or pressure of a fuel storage tank or the like). As described above, conventionally there has been a problem that refueling requires a complicated work.
In view of the circumstances, in recent years there has been provided a technology that the refueling connector is integrated with the electrical signal connector to simplify the connection work between the refueling facility and the fuel cell vehicle (for example, refer to patent document 1).
[Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-104498
Incidentally, when the fuel cell vehicle is refueled, there is such a problem that a battery runs out after the refueling or the like due to power consumption of power consuming devices (for example, a lighting device, an air conditioner, a temperature control mechanism, and other auxiliary machines mounted on the vehicle) during the refueling in addition to the above problem. For example, the fuel cell vehicle is provided with a high pressure tank mounted thereon for storing fuel to be supplied from the refueling facility, and the temperature control mechanism may control the temperature of the tank during the refueling in some cases. Due to large power consumption caused by the temperature control mechanism, the battery runs out if the temperature control mechanism continues to be operated during the refueling, which leads to such a problem that the vehicle cannot be started after the refueling.